


Soldiers Always Find a War

by embroiderama



Category: Supernatural, White Collar
Genre: Chance Meetings, Crossover, Gen, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Winchester wasn't too happy about going on a hunt that centered on an FBI agent's house, but it all got a little more interesting when he realized that he'd met the man before--many years before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soldiers Always Find a War

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the [](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/)**hc_bingo** April crossover challenge, for the prompt "job related trauma," though I've touched on "theft" and "serial killers" as well. The h/c in this is light, but you don't put these guys together in a fic and get hugs and stroking of fevered brows. You just don't. Thank you to everybody who encouraged me in this madness.

Some hunts were so fucked up from the start that John Winchester just wanted to walk away. Turn his back, leave it behind because it was none of his business, not his job to save everybody who had the bad luck to have a run-in with some supernatural piece of crap. Except it _was_ his job. He could curse fate, and he sure as hell did some nights, but he was one of the few who knew what was out there. If he could save some people from the kind of rude awakening he'd experienced, then that was a pretty decent job as far as John was concerned.

But this was definitely one of those hunts that had "stay away" posted over it in neon lights. It wasn't all that complicated, or it didn't look to be from the outside. Just a haunted object. The antique hand-mirror had been sold six times in the past fifty years and somebody in the household had died every time, within days of the purchase. John had tried to get to it before the purchase was complete, but his intel had been slow in coming and he was too damn late. So now he had the task of breaking into a house in suburban Northern Virginia, which shouldn't have been much of an issue--if it weren't for the homeowner.

This area, it was no surprise to find a government employee, but this guy was no ordinary bureaucratic drone. He was FBI, an SAC, and attention from the feds on that level was the last damn thing John needed. He was trying to keep from moving the boys around so often, and that made flying under the radar more important than ever. Dean never said much but now that Sam was only a couple years away from graduating he made life hell on all of them any time John even talked about having to move in the middle of a semester. John wouldn't admit it to a single living soul, but the boy had a point, and so John was doing his best.

All in all, there was more than enough reason for John to leave this Agent Hughes and his wife to fend for themselves. There were no children in the home so John wouldn't have that on his conscience, but there was no use trying to fool himself--John wasn't going anywhere until that mirror was melted into a lump of glass and metal and salt.

He'd cased the house and nobody was at home so the plan was for a simple in and out. Fifteen years of hunting under his belt, John should've remembered that the simplest cases could take the worst turns, but he wasn't thinking about that as he bypassed the security system and entered through a window. He headed straight up to the second floor, since chances were a mirror like the one in question would be in the master bedroom on a dresser or vanity, and indeed it was. The mirror looked ordinary and harmless, sitting in front of a jewelry box, next to a hair brush and a bottle of face cream.

 _Mary would've liked it,_ John thought, then squashed it down. There was no good in going down that road. John picked up the mirror, but before he could put in in the warded box he'd brought for getting it out of there he was suddenly yanked off his feet, like some seven foot tall wrestler had taken his hand and whipped him around. John tried to drop the mirror, but his fingers were locked around its handle, and it swung him again, crashing him against a solid wood dresser. He saw the corner of the door jamb coming at him, but he couldn't pull himself free of the spirit's control and he felt more than heard the thud of his head striking wood just before everything went dark.

The double-click of a round chambering in a Glock startled John awake but he held himself still. He was on the floor on his back, his hands cuffed to something behind his head, and he could feel the scratch and pull of a bandage taped to his forehead. Somebody was breathing above him.

"You can stop playing possum, I know you're awake. What I want to know now is who you are and what the _hell_ you're doing in my house."

John opened his eyes to see a tall, slim man in a suit with no tie standing over him with a pistol held steadily in one hand. There was something in the man's dry voice that sounded familiar and something in the face, but the angle was bad and besides, John had more pressing things to think about. Like not getting shot. At least this guy--Hughes, John assumed--didn't look like the type of man to have an itchy trigger finger. "It's not what it looks like," John said.

"Oh, yeah? So you didn't break into my house?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"In the manner of speaking in which you gained entry to my home without a key or permission?"

"Okay, all right." John pushed himself up, using his legs to shove himself back against the foot of the bed, even if his arms were still awkwardly bent behind him. He really wasn't fond of having conversations on his back. Hughes kept the gun on him but didn't look like he was about to get jumpy. "I did break in, but I'm not interested in stealing your goddamn stereo. You won't believe me, but I'm trying to help you."

"I'm sure you are."

"Would you just hear me out? You've got me pinned down here so what's the risk?"

"What's the goddamn benefit?"

"Saving somebody's life. Your wife's, probably."

"Are you threatening MY WIFE?" Hughes straightened up and held the pistol out like he was finally aching to use it. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?"

The sense of familiarity increased--something about that barking voice--and then the pieces fell into place. He saw Hughes in fatigues, younger, more hair, just as lanky. _Lieutenant Hughes._ "I'm John Winchester," he said steadily, finding it strange to give his real name. "Lance Corporal Winchester, Echo 2/1, sir. I would salute but I'm a little tied up here."

"What the hell?" Hughes crouched down to look in John's face, and he wondered if Hughes would even be able to see that skinny kid in what he'd become. He shook his head slowly. "Jesus. Johnny Winchester. Like the rifle."

John nodded. "Good to see you, LT. Sorry about inviting myself in."

Hughes sighed heavily and sat down on the floor across from John. "What the hell happened to you?"

"A lot of things, but the issue here is what I'm trying to stop from happening. You're not going to want to believe me, and I don't really give a crap, but there are dangerous things in this world that can't be controlled by laws or automatic pistols. That mirror your wife bought at some antique store? The last half a dozen owners of that mirror died within a week of buying it. And this goes back almost a century--it's no serial killer."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about ghosts and most all of the other things that aren't supposed to be real."

"Right. Tell me, is there some VA hospital that's missing you, Johnny?"

"I'm not crazy. It would be a hell of a lot easier if I were." John closed his eyes and saw Mary, saw her burn the way he had for fifteen years now. "I had a wife, I had a nice life, and she was killed by something that doesn't follow your laws. And so I fight. I was trained to fight."

"I'm sorry to hear that happened to you. I really am."

"I'm trying to keep it from happening to you, and you don't even have to believe me. There's a wooden box in my bag over there, and I need to get the mirror in there without getting knocked on my ass again. Then I need to take it outside, cover it with salt and burn it until it's unrecognizable. If you're right, if I'm nuts, then all that happens is you have to explain away the absence of your wife's newest shiny toy. If I'm right, if there's more going on, you'll see it for yourself."

Hughes shook his head then looked over at where the mirror in question lay on the floor. The man John remembered was smart and curious, but he was going to have to make up his own mind. He clambered to his feet then and pulled a keyring out of his pocket. "I've got a firepit in the backyard," he said, and John felt himself smile for the first time in what felt like months.

Once Hughes unlocked the cuffs, John stood up and resisted the urge to rub at his wrists. He was more careful with securing the mirror this time, holding the box open above the mirror and then snapping the box closed like he was trapping something that was alive. When he turned around, Hughes was poking around inside his gear bag.

"You sure you're not some kind of serial killer, Winchester?"

"So it's Winchester now, _Lieutenant_?"

Hughes looked up, holding a machete between two fingertips. "I don't like to address serial killers by their first names."

"I don't kill anything that's human, and anything I hunt that used to be human--" John shook his head. "Well, it ain't been alive in a long damn time. Believe me, you federal boys don't want to tangle with the things I've seen."

Hughes let out a sharp bark of laughter. "We've got an agent here, working in the Hoover Building. He's out of his damn mind but he'd love to talk to a guy like you."

"I think I'll pass. Staying off the law enforcement radar is a survival skill in my line of work, if you understand me."

"Loud and clear. If you're telling the truth nobody but me will ever know you were here."

"Fair enough. You said something about a fire pit?"

Hughes led John back down the stairs and out through the back of the house to a bare patch of dirt with bricks forming a border around the outside. Nothing had been burned on the ground there in years, but it would do.

"My younger daughter begged me to let her dig up the back yard like this so she could practice making fires for some Girl Scouts badge."

"Good skill to have." John imagined a world that would've had his boys working to earn badges rather than learning how to keep themselves alive, then he just shook it off. He pulled the can of rock salt out of his bag and laid down a heavy line of it just within the border of the bricks; that was reality. "The salt line will keep whatever comes out of the mirror from leaving the circle before I can get rid of it for good."

"Should I go raid my wife's spice cabinet?"

John ignored the comment. "There are things too strong to be held in by a ring of salt, but whatever's haunting that mirror shouldn't be that strong."

"It's strong enough to knock you out."

John grunted. "It won't get the jump on me twice." John put the warded box down in the center of the circle and looked over at Hughes before opening it. "This is when it's going to start to get interesting again."

"Why don't you just burn it inside the box?"

"You think I can just go to K-Mart and get a new one?"

"You've got a point," Hughes said, his voice dry as bone.

John re-checked his gear to make sure there was enough salt left in the can, that the lighter fluid and matches were at hand, and that his shotgun was loaded with rock salt shells just in case the situation got out of control. He looked over at Hughes and made a decision he hoped wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass. "Here--I guess you know how to shoot one of these."

"Jesus Christ, Winchester." Hughes looked at the weapon like the last thing he wanted to do was put his fingerprints on it. "My weapons certification is up to date, I can tell you that. But I don't know about--"

"The shells are packed with rock salt. You get shot with one of these, you'll be pissed off, picking salt out of your skin. A spirit gets shot with rock salt and it dissipates for a few minutes. It works at a longer range than throwing salt in its face."

"Smart." Hughes looked at the gun more consideringly, and John felt a swell of pride that he told himself was stupid sentiment.

"My son's idea. Just keep watch and if anything gets out past the salt line shoot it."

"Understood."

John felt Hughes watching him keenly as he opened the box and dumped the mirror into the middle of the circle. A sudden wind began to whip through the yard, and John knew he had to work fast before the salt circle was dispersed. On a hunch, he used the edge of his knife to flip the mirror over to glass side up then punched at the glass with the handle of the knife, shattering the glass. Seven years of bad luck was a drop in the bucket compared to the way John's life had gone so far, and his hunch was right--under the glass sat a lock of hair, fine and brittle and more than enough to anchor an angry spirit to the object.

John dumped salt onto the mirror, squirted it with lighter fluid, and after struggling against the wind to get it lit, dropped a match and stepped back. A piercing shriek echoed around them as the shape of a woman rose up from the burning remains of the mirror and then disappeared in a column of flame. John looked over at Hughes to see him staring in shock at the space where the spirit had been. "You got any marshmallows?" he asked, reaching out to take the shotgun back.

Hughes handed the weapon over without argument. "Hell with marshmallows, I need something a little stronger. You drink?"

"What do you think?" The fire was almost burned out, and while most of the mirror was still intact, every trace that had held the spirit was burned away. John pulled a trowel out of his bag and dug up enough dirt from the edges of the firepit to cover the charred remains. When his gear was packed up and the site as secure as it needed to be John turned to look at Hughes who still looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over. "Whiskey?"

"Damn right."

Hughes' den or office or whatever it was supposed to be was some kind of a stereotype, but John had to admit he liked it. They sat in brown leather armchairs in a dimly lit room lined with bookcases with a heavy desk at the other end of the room. A cabinet opened to reveal a collection of bottles, and the two fingers of whiskey in John's thick-bottomed glass was a far better brand than he usually even thought about.

"I'm trying to convince myself I didn't just see what I thought I saw," Hughes said, staring into the amber liquid in his glass.

"That's not a half bad idea. I wouldn't blame you if you did."

"Maybe not, but I would blame myself. What if something like this happens again?"

"I'll give you my number. If I'm not close enough I know a guy who can find somebody who is."

"There are other people who do what you do?"

"Some enemies just need to be fought."

"I understand that," Hughes said, and John thought that he did.

John left soon after, with the mellow burn of good booze in his belly. As he tried to get to sleep that night, John thought about the lanky young man who'd been his CO and the middle-aged Fed who had just covered his back in a salt and burn. He thought about himself, barely eighteen and scared to death, and about Dean, just a little bit older than that boy though he'd seen a hell of a lot more. He thought about Sam, who dreamed about that comfortable suburban life with its illusion of safety. Sam, who didn't understand yet how it could all fall apart.

As much as John was glad to have helped spare Reese Hughes from a harsher introduction to the world of the supernatural, he hoped he wouldn't hear from the man again. The further he and the boys could stay away from the FBI, the safer they would be. As safe as the Winchesters could ever be.


End file.
